Harry Dursley
by Cerenbus.Snape.Malfoy
Summary: Has anyone ever considered how Harry would have turned out had he been raised as a spoilt brat like Dudley? How many things would be different? How different would Harry be? If the Dursley's hadn't estranged him so much, would Harry have gone with Hagrid? Would affection and spoil ruin him? Would Harry Potter... not be Harry Potter at all?
1. Chapter 1

Harry Dursley was perfectly normal, thank you very much.

He was as perfectly normal as his exceptionally normal brother, Dudley, and as perfectly normal as his outstandingly normal parents, Vernon and Petunia Dursley. One thing that was not normal about him was that he bore absolutely no resemblance to his family. But he didn't dwell on that.

No sir, Harry Dursley didn't dwell on such strange atrocities, he merely lived through them as normally as possible and strived to eliminate all existence of that which might be labeled as, heaven forbid, _not normal._

For normalcy sake, Harry covered that atrocious scar with makeup and slicked back that horridly untidy hair with so much grease he could easily fill the tank to his father's car. He hated it when his hair was a mess. Dudley's hair was never messy. So neither should Harry's.

One morning in particular, when Harry was fetching the post, he found, among the many other letters addressed to him, a strange letter with a strange return address. It had also gotten his name wrong. It said 'Harry Potter' instead of 'Harry Dursley'.

"Father?" He questioned, staring at the note.

"Yes, Harry my fine boy, what is it?" Vernon purred, poring over the letters he had received.

"This letter is _not normal." _Harry held the envelope by the very corner with his thumb and pointer as if it were filthy.

Petunia looked up from her breakfast and Dudley's eyes were successfully pried away from the television set.

Vernon reached for the letter, his large belly squishing against his plate in the process. He snatched the letter and stared at the words, his eyes slowly growing wide. Petunia hurried to her feet so she could stare over his shoulder, then they collectively looked up at a confused Harry.

"What is it?" He grumbled, annoyed.

"Must be a mistake, my boy. It isn't even for you, see they got your name wrong." Vernon laughed uncomfortably. "Come, Petunia darling, let us take this back to the post master, straight away!"

Harry watched in confusion as his parents hurried and left.

He shrugged, bored with dwelling on such things. "Dudley, what did you get in the mail?"

Dudley glanced at his brother then shrugged, handing Harry his letters.

Harry leafed through them idly. "Ah, I see we both were accepted by Smeltings Academy."

"Why of course you were, darling!" Petunia suddenly appeared, startling Harry into tipping over his juice.

"No no no, don't fuss darling, I'll get it!" Petunia hurriedly cleaned up the mess. "Your father took the letter himself, so I decided to stay with you boys, pumpkin." Petunia chirped, kissing Harry's rosy cheek and smiling fondly at Dudley as she cleared the table.

Harry leaned back lazily in his chair, snatching a biscuit from his brother's plate as he watched the thin, horse-faced woman wash the dishes.

Harry was lazy. And while he wasn't as plump as his brother due to a far smaller bone structure, he was certainly healthily built. He preferred exercise to be an equal part of his life, in contrast to how utterly lazy he was. At school, he helped his brother bully smart kids into doing their homework, only really participating in Physical Education. At home, he and Dudley teamed up on bullying their mother into doing everything for them. And she did so with a blink and a smile.

Now, there was something that the Dursley's weren't telling their precious Harry. Something sinister lay hidden beneath their adoration for the boy, something strange was hiding beneath the many layers of Dursley-ness.

He wasn't really their son.

No, Harry Dursley was actually Harry Potter, son of Petunia's deceased sister and brother in-law. The Dursley's had taken the boy in when he was a mere baby, and decided to raise him as their own son. Over the years, they no longer had to pretend to love him. He was just as perfect as their darling Dudley.

The only thing that threatened their perfect, happy family was that blasted letter. Oh how Vernon despised that letter. Hell would freeze over before he let those bloody freaks ruin the family he had created for himself. Looking back, he realized their lives had been made better by Harry's addition to the family. Harry was a Dursley through and through and he'd be damned if he let that all slip away now.

Harry Potter was not Harry Potter at all, you see. Harry Potter, was thoroughly, completely and one-hundred percent… Harry Dursley.

**AN: So what do you think? Yes? No? Maybe? I personally enjoyed writing this, let me know if you have any ideas as to Harry's personality and how he should react to the letter if he ever reads it.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Fine day, Sunday is." Vernon announced with slight craze in his eyes and Harry nodded fervently in agreement.

"Why do you think that is, Dudley?"

Dudley shrugged, taking a cookie from the plate Harry set down on the coffee table.

"Because there's no post on Sundays." Harry explained with a relieved smile, offering his father a cookie.

"Right you are, Harry. No post on Sundays. Not one blasted letter! Not one!"

Indeed, the Dursley's had been receiving countless letters for the past week, hidden in strange places such as inside unopened eggs and even stuffed in the toothpaste tubes. Harry and Vernon had spent the last week burning the damned things and going mad seeing new ones every time they turned around.

"Bloody spammers, just want our money. See that's what people like that do; they pick someone and spam them until they give in, but not us! No sir, not us." Vernon laughed and stuffed the cookie in his mouth.

"Uh… dad….?" Harry whispered, peeking out the window and seeing that all the owls were still there, as they had been for the past week since the letters started showing up.

Vernon looked up when a strange buzzing sound filled the room, and a moment later, a million or more envelopes started shooting into the room through the fireplace. Everyone screamed and ran for cover as the wooden plank over the letterbox broke and in shot another couple hundred thousand letters.

Dudley hid behind his mother and Harry hid behind his father, and all four of them didn't stop screaming long enough to notice that the floor was completely covered in letters, and a small ocean of paper was beginning to form.

"THAT'S IT! We're going away! FAR AWAY!"

And far, was certainly what Vernon meant. Snapping at the boys when they took too long packing, Vernon threw a few essentials in the car, stuffed his family in and didn't stop driving until well into the morning. Even by then, the Dursley's were still very shaken by how utterly relentless the letters were, as was the person who was sending them.

They drove. And they drove. Even petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then, Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake 'em off… shake 'em off." He would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day, and by nightfall Dudley and Harry were howling. They'd never had such a bad day in their lives. They were hungry, they'd missed their favorite television shows and neither of them had gone so long without blowing up an alien on their computers.

Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Harry and Dudley shared a room with damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored, but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, nursing several paper cuts he had gotten during the chaos when the letters had been raining in the room like… well like magic. Not that Harry believed in such silly things of course, but he'd be damned if he thought that something like that could happen without a bit of magic. Dark magic, of course.

The family ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next morning. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green address.

**Mr. H. Potter  
Room 17  
Railview Hotel  
Cokeworth**

Harry and Vernon's knees hit the bottom of the table, causing the silverware to clatter and the cups to tip, both letting out screams that merged into one solid noise, the both of them leaning back so far their chairs tipped back and they hit the floor with a collective thump.

Everyone in the breakfast lounge stared.

Hours later, the lot of them had been stuffed back into the car and drove and drove some more.

"Wouldn't it be better to just go home, dear?" Petunia suggested timidly, but Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back into the car and they were off again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked his mum dully late that afternoon, and Harry had to agree with him. Vernon had parked the car at the coast, locked them all inside, and disappeared.

It had begun raining ten minutes after he had gone. Great drops beat on the roof of the car and the boys pushed each other aside trying to climb into Petunia's lap. Harry ended up winning the shoving match and snuggled against his mother's warmth as they waited.

It just wasn't fair. In all the hullabaloo, everyone had forgotten that tomorrow was his birthday. And this just wasn't how his birthday was supposed to be. Last year, his parents had taken him to every toy store within ten miles of their home and let _him _choose his presents. Dudley always liked having them wrapped, but Harry liked personally picking out his own gifts.

Harry, while being rightfully eleven in a few hours, would according to the Dursley's be turning only ten years old, a full year younger than Dudley. They had even gone to the lengths of having his birth certificate professionally altered, showing them as the birth parents, and changing the year of his birth from 1980 to 1981. Harry would never have known the difference.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart." Harry heard his mother murmur into his hair as she gently stroked his back. Her voice was thick and sad and Harry smiled lightly into her blouse, lulled by the humming in her chest and the sound of the raindrops against the windshield. She hadn't forgotten. Selfish as he was, for the time being, just that simple wish was enough for him.

At that moment, Vernon had returned with a great bumbling grin on his face. He was carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"I've found the perfect place! Everyone out!" He said proudly, that little bit of craze still in his eyes.

It was frigid outside the car, the wind cut through them like knives and the two boys stuck close to their mother, who couldn't have protected a beanstalk from the wind as thin as she was. Everyone shielded their eyes to look where Vernon was pointing. What they saw, was what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of that rock was the most miserable little shack one could imagine.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" Vernon announced gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat."

A toothless old man came ambling forward, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," Vernon told them. "so all aboard!"

It was glacial on the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down old house.

"Vernon, are you sure this place is… safe?" Petunia fussed, stopping firmly in her tracks and refusing to take a step closer.

"Safer than home, is for sure." Vernon snapped moodily, helping the boys get out of the boat and tying it in place on the dock.

"But dad, it looks as though the wind could knock this piece of rubbish to the ground!" Harry cried, glaring at the rickety old building.

Petunia hurried over to her son. "I know, pumpkin, and I'm sorry we have to spend your birthday in such a ruddy place but love isn't this better than drowning in those bloody letters?"

Harry couldn't even reply before Vernon let out a long moan at the mention of the letters. Glaring at his wife, he covered his ears and stormed into the old house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of sea-weed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

Dudley and Harry spent the afternoon playing chess on an old board they found in a creaky old cupboard, hidden behind twenty years worth of dust and cobwebs. It had at least ten pieces missing from both sides, so it was fairly evenly matched, though neither of them put much enthusiasm into the game.

Come late evening, the wind had picked up and the family could feel the old house shake each time the waves crashed against it, and the walls did little to nothing to keep out the wind.

"Check mate." Harry sighed for the sixteenth time that night and Dudley cursed loudly as he spilled the pieces into Harry's lap.

"Hey! Sore loser." Harry griped, shoving Dudley, who slipped on the dirty floor and spent the rest of the night sitting on ice to ease the pain in his bruised backside, much to Harry's amusement.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed on the moth-eaten sofa.

"Happy birthday pumpkin." Petunia whispered one last time, kissing Harry goodnight before disappearing to the room next door, to share the lumpy old bed with her lumpy old husband.

After much arguing and complaining over who got the couch, Petunia reasoned that since Harry pushed Dudley, it was only fair that he should have to sleep on the floor. Harry had put up a valiant dispute, but in the end was the one sleeping in the dirt with one of the softer blankets to compensate.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned out by the thunder that started near midnight.

Harry sighed, absently tracing a cake into the grit, his finger sore after the eleventh candle was finished. He glanced at his glow-in-the-dark wrist watch that he had gotten for his birthday (Dudley had the exact same watch) and as the clock struck midnight, Harry sighed and blew on the cake, blowing out imaginary candles.

He shrieked when something massive pounded against the door, and Dudley was instantly awakened as well. Vernon and Petunia, awoken by a second pound and their children's shrieking hurried into the room, Vernon armed with a rifle.

One last bang and a humongous man burst into the home, silhouetted against the frothy waves outside. His hands were the size of large pots and his feet were twice as huge. Harry and Dudley screamed and clung to one another in the far corner of the building.

"Eh, sorry about that." The harry man sighed, his deep but oddly friendly voice booming in the small room as he turned, lifted the heavy wooden door with ease and crushed it back into place.

"You sir, are breaking and entering! Leave at once!" Vernon spat, aiming his rifle at the giant man.

"Oh, dry up Durlsey yeh old prune." He muttered, bending the tip of Vernon's rifle. "Ah, 'arry, las' time I saw yeh you was only a baby, you look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."

Harry swallowed hard, hiding behind Dudley who was squishing him against a wall. Harry didn't know what the great man was talking about, he looked nothing like his parents.

"Anyway 'arry, a very 'appy birthday to yeh. Got summat for yeh here – I mighta sat on it a time er two, but it'll taste all right just the same." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box and held it out. Harry peaked out from behind Dudley, saw that the giant was looking right at him, then hid again.

With a great heave, Vernon smashed the handle of his rifle down on the box, sending it crashing to the floor.

The look the giant gave Vernon sent a frightening feeling into Harry.

"Now look 'ere, you old prune-" The man began.

"What do you want with me?" Harry interrupted, throwing himself between the giant and his father.

"Ah, 'arry." The giant smiled under his thick beard. "I e'spect you'd be rearin' ta go. Come on then."

Petunia shrieked at Vernon to save their son when the giant put a hand on Harry's shoulder and began pulling him forward.

Harry screamed and fought himself free, diving for his mother's arms.

"Don't touch my son, you great filthy beast!" Vernon snarled, holding the broken rifle like a baseball bat, ready to use as a weapon if necessary.

"Son!?" The giant's voice boomed. "Is that what yous been tellen' 'im? No wonder the poor boy's confused!"

"The only confusion here," Vernon said in a deadly calm. "is that of your own mind. I shall tell you once again to leave."

"Er what exactly?" The giant put his large hands on his even larger hips.

"I am prepared to protect my family." Vernon replied, his wife and sons hiding behind him.

"You're a wizard, Harry! Did they ever even tell you?" Teh giant tried to see Harry from around Vernon.

Harry yelped and hid further behind his parents. "Go away you great beast!" He cried, shaking in his skin. "I want nothing to do with you!" Then, as an afterthought added, "And stop sending those bloody letters!"

The giant all at once realized that he wouldn't be able to convince Harry to go with him, suddenly turned and left, casting the family a strange glance, hundreds of emotions flittering behind his beetle black eyes before disappearing into the darkness outside.

The boys spent that night squashed between their parents on the lumpy old bed, too scared to fall asleep.

**AN: So what do you think that Hagrid is gonna tell Dumbledore? Please review! :D**


End file.
